62. Aurora
AURORA
For the next few months, life went on as before.
Ryse and I went to classes during the day and loved each other at night.
Ryse found another dictionary and was making real progress on his translation and I was able to pull up my grades in my Battlefield Signaling class, mainly by making L’eesha behave herself.
In fact, my only point of concern was about my dragon—she was growing so fast.
“Never seen anything like it,” the Cavern Master said, scratching his head when he spoke to me about it. “Never seen a dragon grow and mature at this pace. It’s almost like her body is pushing her for a reason, but I’ll be damned if I know what it is.”
I looked at my dragon in concern as we spoke. She was currently making a messy meal of five large goat carcasses and enjoying herself thoroughly.
“She’s already bigger than a lot of the grown dragons,” the Cavern Master said to me. “She keeps on growing like this and she’ll definitely be the biggest dragon we’ve seen here in over a century.”
“Will that hurt her?” I asked anxiously. “Growing so fast and getting so big, I mean?”
“Nay, lad—it shouldn’t,” he said. “But I’ll wager she’s going to be ready to rise for a Mating Flight well before most females are.”
“A Mating Flight?” My heart started pounding. We hadn’t had a Mating Flight since the awful one that had left everyone so shaken. But another Flight could take place at any time. I just had to be sure I was near Ryse when it happened, I told myself.
But what would I do when L’eesha rose for the first time? Everyone knew that a dragon’s need to breed or to be bred would affect their rider with the same need. I didn’t know if I would be able to control myself when that time came.
I’d had all this in the back of my mind for some time, of course, but I’d been telling myself it was a problem for the future—something I could forget about for now. However, hearing the Cavern Master say that L’eesha was going to rise for her first Mating Flight soon was sobering.
I thanked him for the information and resolved to talk to Ryse about it so we could map out some kind of a strategy. But before I could do that, a new problem arose…or maybe I should say an old problem came back.
Because as I was about to leave the Dragon Caverns, I heard a commotion outside.
I had heard the dragons singing all together and humming as one on Impression Day and Hatching Day. But this sounded like every dragon at the Academy was hissing at once.
Turning my head, I saw that L’eesha had stopped eating and was hissing too—her long neck raised, and her bloody teeth bared in warning.
“What is it, sweetheart—what’s wrong?” I asked her.
“danger!” she sent back to me. “a threat coming from outside!”
“Danger? What kind of danger?”
But she only kept repeating that a threat was coming. It appeared I had to see for myself if I wanted to know what it was.
Despite L’eesha begging me not to go, I ran quickly through the honeycombed maze of the Caverns until I came to the arching exit that opened onto the side of the mountain.
Looking out, I saw a lone rider on a common Green dragon flying towards the Flight Terraces, which jutted out of the Old Drake on the level below me. The rider was listing in the saddle, barely hanging on and his dragon was flying erratically.
As he got closer, I saw to the shock that it was Chud Larson. After the Mating Flight, he’d been reassigned to Wide Patrol, flying through the far reaches of the kingdom to be sure all was well and that the Madlings hadn’t returned.
It was the same task my own father had been charged with—though it was far beneath his station as a rider from a Great House flying a Crimson Gold-wing.
Most considered it a punishment detail since the Madlings had been gone for so long and no one expected them to ever come back.
But it was an Academy tradition to keep patrolling all corners of the kingdom and so riders still went out for weeks or months at a time and then returned to report when their assignment was over.
As Chud got closer, I could see that something was terribly wrong with him. One side of his face was swollen—so puffy it must be hard for him to see from his left eye—and there were streaks of gray crossing his skin that looked disturbingly like some kind of blood poisoning.
“They’re coming!” he shouted, his voice hoarse and ragged as his dragon stumbled to a landing on the broad ledge of the Flight Terraces below me. “They’re coming!”
“Who’s coming, lad?” I heard one of the Terrace workers ask as they helped him dismount.
But Chud didn’t answer. Instead, he started laughing manically—a low, hoarse, dreadful sound that had no humor in it at all.
“They’re coming!” he choked out again and his dragon reeled and went to her knees. She was trembling all over with exhaustion as though she’d been flying as hard and fast as she could for days and was on the point of collapse.
Indeed, even from where I was, a level above them, I could feel her fear for her rider. She nudged Chud with her snout and made a soft, pitiful sound filled with worry.
“she wants someone to help him,” L’eesha said, and I saw that she had come up beside me. I’d been so busy watching Chud, that I hadn’t even noticed. “he’s sick,” she added.
“Someone needs to get the Healer,” I said and turned to go but L’eesha stopped me.
“i already told the Head Master’s dragon to tell the Head Master to get her,” she said.
“The Head Master? You didn’t have to get him involved,” I said, feeling a stab of apprehension.
“i thought he should know,” she said. “this is very bad. his dragon is saying he was bitten by a Madling.”
“What?” I rounded on her, my heart pounding. “No—that can’t be true!”
L’eesha looked at me, her rainbow eyes blinking slowly.
“it is what his dragon says. she is sending out the warning—that is why all the dragons are hissing.”
Indeed, they all were, and the sound was high and eerie, putting my nerves on edge. A moment later, I saw Professor Zephyr, the Head Healer, hurry out to the ledge. She was followed by the Head Master.
By now Chud Larson had stopped laughing but what he was doing now was hardly an improvement. He was leaning against his dragon’s side, staring up at the sky. His swollen, gray-streaked face had a blank look on it and greenish foam was leaking slowly from the corner of his mouth.
“God and Goddess,” I whispered, staring down at him. “He looks terrible!”
“he is very sick,” L’eesha agreed. “soon he will die.”
“L’eesha, that’s an awful thing to say!” I scolded. Though I had no love for Chud Larson, I didn’t wish death on him—at least, not this kind of death.
“i am only telling the truth,” she protested. “his dragon says he was bitten three days ago—it is too late to save him now.”
The Healer seemed to be coming to the same conclusion. As she examined Chud, he began laughing again, his no-color eyes rolling in his head. Then, with surprising quickness, he snapped at Professor Zephyr.
With an exclamation she drew her hand back just in time.
The Head Master, who was standing beside her, drew back also.
“Save him!” I heard him say to the Healer. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I can’t be sure, Head Master, but I am afraid he’s past saving,” she said, shaking her head sorrowfully. “If this is what I think it is, he’s too far gone.”
“What do you think it is?” he demanded angrily, his hand clenched into fists at his sides. If I’d ever had a doubt that Chud Larson was somehow related to him, I lost it now. He was clearly upset on a personal level.
“Head Master, please—I think we should speak of this in private.” Professor Zephyr cast her eyes around the Flight Terraces and I saw she didn’t want to start a panic among the workers and riders who were watching.
But the Head Master wasn’t having it.
“Say it! Tell me what it is!” he demanded. “Tell me what’s wrong with my boy?”
Professor Zephyr took a deep breath, and I saw the concern etched on her face.
“I believe,” she said at last, “That Cadet Larson was bitten by a Madling.”
The Head Master’s reply was instant.
“No, you’re wrong!” he said at once. “That’s a lie and you know it! The Madlings are all gone—they have been for a hundred years!”
“I’m sorry, but he has all the symptoms. Look at the side of his neck.”
The Healer pointed to the swollen left side of Chud’s face and neck, which was where the gray lines originated.
I wished I could get a closer look to see what the bite looked like, but he was too far away.
My father had never had such symptoms—no swelling or gray lines—but he’d come home one night claiming to have been bitten and the very next day he was dead, having killed himself sometime in the early morning hours.
Could it be that the symptoms developed over time? Chud’s dragon had told L’eesha he’d been bitten three days ago.
I had so many questions, but no answers. Also, the Head Master was still insisting that Professor Zephyr had to heal Chud.
“Help him! You’re the Healer so heal him!” he demanded of her.
She shook her head sadly.
“The best I can do is to try and give him something to make him more comfortable. I fear his end is very near.”
“You’re lying!” The Head Master’s eyes were wild now. “He’s going to be fine. The Madlings are gone—he just has some kind of infection. Take him into the Infirmary and heal him now!”
Professor Zephyr shook her head again.
“I can’t bring him inside—the Madling venom is contagious. If he bites or scratches anyone else, it could spread.”
“But you can’t just—” the Head Master began.
But just then, Chud let out a loud, agonized wail. His whole body stiffened, and his back bowed as though he was going through some kind of seizure or spasm.
I felt my breath catch in my throat as I watched from above—his eyes were rolled back in his head and the whites were gray—as gray as the lines that covered his swollen face.
His throat worked convulsively and then a huge gout of black vomit sprayed from his mouth.
The Healer and the Head Master jumped back instinctively and the dragons’ hissing got even louder.
Then I saw something awful—something I never could unsee. A long, wormy mass started coming out of Chud’s mouth. It was stained black and it just kept coming and coming and coming, piling up on his chest as he choked and gurgled and heaved over and over again.
And then I understood what it was—Chud wasn’t just vomiting the contents of his stomach—he was vomiting up his organs. Somehow his intestines were coming out of his mouth, heaped in glistening black piles all over him and around him.
“Oh God and Goddess,” I moaned and turned to press my face to L’eesha’s arching golden neck.
“he is dying,” she said sadly and nuzzled me comfortingly. “how awful for his dragon to lose her rider!”
And then, with a last heave that seemed to wrack his entire body, Chud was still. I watched in horror as he went limp, collapsed in a pool of black vomit and the shiny piles of his own internal organs.
At last, the dragons stopped hissing. Apparently the threat was now dead and their warning was done.
“Stay back, all of you!” Professor Zephyr called in a loud, clear voice. “Don’t touch him—he’s very contagious.”
Everyone seemed inclined to obey her but the Head Master, who was weeping openly now. I had never seen him display such emotion and honestly, I doubted if anyone at the Academy had.
“He was my son!” he shouted at her when she put a hand on his arm to keep him from going to Chud. “My son and you didn’t save him!”
“You can’t save the victim of a Madling bite,” she said patiently. “I’m sorry, Head Master—there was nothing I could do.”
At that moment, Chud’s Green dragon, who had been nosing him anxiously, threw back her long neck and began to keen.
It was a heartbreaking sound—the sound of a dragon mourning for its rider—a high-pitched wailing I knew I would hear in my nightmares for nights to come.
Then, before the Head Master could go to him, Chud’s dragon got to her feet and carefully gathered his body into her forearms. Awkwardly, she took off, flapping her wings to rise from the Flight Terraces, leaving only a black puddle behind to show where he had been.
“Where is she taking him?” I asked—I had never seen or heard of anything like this before.
“to the Burn Pits,” L’eesha said sadly. She was keening now too—all the dragons were. It was a sound of hair-raising desperate sorrow that came from all sides and made my skin shiver into chill bumps.
“To the Burn Pits?” I echoed, still not understanding.
“she will fly as high as she can and then dive them both into the lava,” L’eesha explained. “that way the Madling madness will be burned away so it can’t sicken anyone else.”
She sounded unusually sober and grown up. I wondered how she knew such things. Was it instinctual?
“some is instinct,” I heard her say and I realized she must have caught my unguarded thought.
“the Madlings are our natural enemies, you know—it’s one reason the humans started bonding with us—because they saw us flaming them out of the sky.
but also, the other dragons tell me things.
and every dragon knows what to do when his or her rider dies. ”
She nudged me with her huge head, which was twice as big as I was by this time.
“my Auri, promise me you won’t die for a long, long time,” she pleaded. “promise you won’t let a Madling bite you or anything else happen to you.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I told her, stroking her long nose soothingly. “You and I are going to be together for a long, long time sweetheart.”
But as I did my best to soothe my dragon, I only hoped that I was telling the truth. And I couldn’t get Chud Larson’s last words out of my head.
“They’re coming!” he had been shouting and I could only imagine who “they” might be.